I don't fear that the seperatist terrorism of PKK may ever divide Turkey. I fear that the Turkish government, with its intentionally-polarizing political agenda, has already done it.
Let me give you the pieces of the Turkish puzzle by summarizing what happened here last week. Then you can decide yourself if Turkey is on the verge of submitting to a newly-created Islamist police force or not:
1) Feyzi Isbasaran (above), an MP from Elazig province, resigned from the ruling AKP. He was sent to discipline council of the party over his outspoken remarks against a police 0fficer.
2) Isbasaran was driving his car completely drunk and his remarks while talking to the police officer were surely unacceptable. On the other hand, the officer was very wrong when insisting not to show his ID to Isbasaran even after being asked several times. Arrogance has always been the favorite sin of the Turkish police. It can drive any citizen crazy.
3) In the past, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan had never forced anybody from his party to resign. He concealed all kinds of scandals before, including the ones with some obviously corrupt AKP officials. But this time, when it comes to a political confrontation with the police, Erdogan was surprisingly quick to kick out the trouble-maker.
4) Isbasaran is not an ordinary member of the parliament. He was one of the closest aides of Turgut Ozal, the former President of Turkey. He knows a lot about the police force as he was once in charge of the homeland security.
5) Just before the latest incident, Isbasaran's name had appeared on a column in a right-wing newspaper. While talking to the columnist by phone, Isbasaran was suggesting that there was clique inside the police force which was trying to weaken the military institutions to fill the gap that they would leave behind.
6) According to Isbasaran, the latest allegations about a so-called assassination attempt against Bulent Arinc, the vice PM, was obviously fabricated by this police clique, which was linked to the Gulen Movement, a shadowy Islamist brotherhood. "Unfortunately, some people in our party also believed in it," Isbasaran had complained.
7) After the latest incident which resulted with his departure, Isbasaran insisted again that he was being targeted by this Islamist police clique. "There were death threats. Prime Minister Erdogan will be responsible if something bad happens to me," he said.
8) Meanwhile, according a recent report by Vatan newspaper, the government and the army is at odds behind close doors, because of a fresh draft bill about the police force. The bill will allow the police to import military equipment, including heavy machine guns, completely by-passing the military control. At the same time, the army warns the government about "a confrontation."
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An increasingly powerful, Islamist police force against a weakened, secular army...
Millions of individuals who fear that they will be reprimanded if they ask the policeman to see his ID...
And masses of people who wouldn't understand what's going on, probably until it is too late...
Doesn't it remind you the pre-1982 conditions in Iran?
